Archives: Clinical Trials

RATIONALE: Drugs used in chemotherapy use different ways to stop tumor cells from dividing so they stop growing or die.

PURPOSE: Phase II trial to study the effectiveness of dolastatin 10 in treating patients who have metastatic pancreatic cancer.

Two arms RCT is design, patients with pancreatic body or tail adenocarcinoma will be randomly assigned to the Radical Antegrade Modular Pancreaticosplenectomy (RAMPS) group or Standard Retrograde Pancreatosplenectomy (SRPS) group. The primary objective is to evaluate the effect of RAMPS on the overall survival of patients with resectable body and tail pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma. And the secondary objective is to evaluate the disease-free survival, R0 resection rate, number of retrieved lymph nodes and perioperative outcomes like postoperative complication rate, severe complications, mortality and functional recovery time between the experimental group and control group.

Adenocarcinoma's of the pancreas and periampullary region (distal bile duct, ampulla of Vater and duodenum) are cancers with a poor survival. Good preoperative TNM staging is important to determine the appropriate therapy and prognosis. An important negative prognostic factor is the presence of para-aortic lymph node (LN) metastases which are regarded as distant metastases and precluding a curative resection. Determining LN status, however, is challenging. Ferrotran, (SPL Medical) an ultra-small superparamagnetic iron oxide (USPIO) particle, has proven to be a valuable contrast agent for detecting LN metastases of solid tumours, like prostate and breast cancer, using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The aim of this study is to validate USPIO-MRI to pathology in patients with pancreatic or periampullary cancer.

This phase I trial is studying the side effects and best dose of erlotinib when given together with gemcitabine and radiation therapy in treating patients with locally advanced unresectable pancreatic cancer. Erlotinib may stop the growth of tumor cells by blocking the enzymes necessary for their growth. Drugs used in chemotherapy, such as gemcitabine, work in different ways to stop tumor cells from dividing so they stop growing or die. Radiation therapy uses high-energy x-rays to damage tumor cells. Combining erlotinib with gemcitabine may make the tumor cells more sensitive to radiation therapy and may kill more tumor cells.

Pancreatic cancer is the eighth most common occurrence in Korea. In the United States, pancreatic cancer is expected to be the number two cause of death from cancer in 2030. The prevalence of pancreatic cancer is also on the rise in Korea. The 5-year survival rate of pancreatic cancer in Korea is 10.8%. According to the 2017 cause of death statistics, pancreatic cancer mortality is ranked fifth. It is known to have the worst prognosis of cancer in the body. The median survival period of unresectable pancreatic cancer is only six months, and resection is the only treatment that can be expected to be completely cured, but only about 10% of cases are possible to be operable at the time of diagnosis.

In the 2000s, the studies began to emerge on diagnosis and treatment of pancreatic cancer with intermediate anatomical and imaging characteristics of resectable and locally advanced pancreatic cancer. Margin negative resection plays an important role in the long-term survival rate in surgical treatment of pancreatic cancer. Prior to 2001, pancreatic cancer with invasion of vein was considered impossible to perform radical resection. However, the studies have been published that a satisfactory long-term survival rate and margin negative resection could be obtained when venous resection was performed along with radical resection. Since the 2006, the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) guideline, after performing radical resection among locally advanced pancreatic cancers without remote metastasis, pancreatic cancers with high risk of margin positive resection and treatment failure were classified as &#x0022borderline resectable&#x0022. In the borderline resectable pancreatic cancer, neoadjuvant therapy was recommended before surgery. In recent years, the neoadjuvant therapy has been reported to raise the survival rate in resectable pancreatic cancer. Furthermore, a prospective study is in progress to demonstrate the effectiveness of neoadjuvant therapy with FOLFIRINOX in resectable pancreatic cancer. If pancreatic cancer is located in the head of pancreas, jaundice can be occurred often. In the case of preoperative jaundice, the possibility of postoperative complications increases. So biliary drainage is performed before surgery. In biliary drainage, usually the plastic stent was inserted through the endoscope. If the metal stent is inserted in the biliary obstruction, it can cause severe inflammation around the bile duct due to the radial force, and it is difficult to remove in the surgery. However, the meta-analysis comparing the groups of metal and plastic stents in the recent preoperative biliary drainage showed no difference of postoperative complication, and postoperative pancreatic fistula was lower in the group of metal stents (5.1% vs. 11.8% p=0.04). In addition, fewer re-intervention cases before surgery were found in the group of metal stents (3.4% vs.14.8% p < 0.0001).

Not only in the borderline resectable, but also in the resectable pancreatic cancer, neoadjuvant therapy has recently been actively performed in the cases of large tumor size, high CA 19-9, large lymph nodes, severe weight loss, and severe pain. The comparison study of the efficacy between plastic and metal stents in preoperative bile drainage in pancreatic cancer with neoadjuvant therapy has not yet been prospectively performed. However, retrospective studies have shown that metal stents have a lower re-treatment rate than plastic stent (0.24 vs 0.54), and that there is no difference in post-operative complications. Therefore, we planned the study to compare the efficacy and safety between metal and plastic stent in biliary drainage performed in patients undergoing neoadjuvant therapy with pancreatic cancer.

Surgical resection is the only potentially curative treatment for patients with pancreatic cancer with the aim of curative R0 resection and related improvement of survival. As a standard, surgery is usually followed by adjuvant therapy that improves survival but neoadjuvant therapy (NAT) is a rapidly emerging concept that needs to be explored and validated in terms of therapeutic options in borderline resectable pancreatic tumors. In this setting, preoperative FFX seems to be feasible and can be prolonged by radiation therapy. However, the exact and best therapeutic sequence is not yet known and the additional role of adding isotoxic high-dose stereotactic body radiotherapy (iHD-SBRT) to chemotherapy requires validation in randomised trials. We propose to evaluate the impact and efficacy of adding iHD-SBRT to preoperative neoadjuvant mFFX or Gem-NabP in patients with borderline resectable pancreatic adenocarcinoma.

Endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP) is a technique which combines endoscopic and radiological vision and allows for therapeutic procedures on pathologies of the pancreas and bile duct.

ERCP is a generally well tolerated procedure, nonetheless it is a complex technique that has a higher frequency of complications compared to most endoscopic procedures that can even be life-threatening. These complications are related to patient characteristics, experience of the endoscopist performing the procedure, and specific factors to the technique. Due to its complexity, quality assurance, operator training and auditing are required to increase success and minimize complications.

There are quality indicators suggested by the main scientific societies in relation to technical aspects and complications, recommending their monitoring and auditing. Most endoscopy units lack records to monitor quality and complications, which prevents the assessment of quality and the identification of areas for improvement.

Given the lack of evidence of the quality of ERCP in the Spanish population, the investigators will be conducting a multicenter, national prospective study that will include subjects who undergo ERCP.

Patient data and technical aspects of the procedure will be recorded and all included patients will be monitored to identify complications. The quality indicators obtained within the registry will be compared with those established by scientific societies and the relationship between complications and technical factors will be analyzed.

RATIONALE: Drugs used in chemotherapy use different ways to stop tumor cells from dividing so they stop growing or die. Giving the drugs in different ways, such as directly into the abdomen, and combining chemotherapy with radiation therapy may kill more tumor cells.

PURPOSE: Phase II trial to study the effectiveness of combining chemotherapy with radiation therapy plus surgery in treating patients who have advanced cancer of the pancreas.

This is a dose-seeking study that will test the safety of increasing doses of Rexin-G, given intravenously, in patients with advanced or metastatic pancreatic cancer who have failed standard chemotherapy. Rexin-G is a tumor-targeted gene therapy vector that contains a &#x0022killer&#x0022 gene that blocks the action of the human cyclin G1 gene. Cyclin G1 is a cell cycle control element that plays an important role in cancer growth. When injected into a vein, the Rexin-GTM vector seeks out and accumulates in cancerous tumors, therefore, increasing the concentration of the drug in the cancerous tumors and not in normal neighbouring organs.

The purpose of this study is to determine the highest safe dose of rapamycin when given with a fixed amount of grapefruit juice.